Viope Game Programming Contest 2012-2013

Dear all,

Interested in developing a game and winning some great prizes? Then read on.

WHAT?
The contest is organized by Viope Solutions. Participants can compete for Computer/Console game or Mobile Phone game. The competition involves partners and judges from Rovio, Digital Chocolate, Recoil Games, IGDA, Remedy Games, Unity, Playtech, Housemarque, Kajak, AIESEC and Studio On Mars.

WHO?
The contest is open to everyone around the world.

WHERE?
The submission of your game will be done via Viope World e-learning platform

WHEN?
The contest is open from 09th October 2012 till 20th January 2013.

HOW?
Individuals and team of up to 4 members can register through our website.

PRIZES?
Trip to Finland (including accommodation) to meet the top game studios
Unity Pro 4.x licenses for the winning team
Fame and surprise gifts

For more information registration, please go to our website http://www.viope.com/contest
Don’t forget follow us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/viope or Twitter http://www.twitter/com/viope

 

Is this open to non-unity games?. My friends and I only use unity for prototyping game-play.

 

The use of Unity is not required, but we do recommend it So that is, other tools/engines can be used as well.

Antti

 

Is there any age limit to enter the contest? Do you have to be 18 or older?

 

No age limit.

 

Is it mostly about programming, so can alpha prototypes can participate? Will it affect much the judgement?
And can games be pitched to publishers before, during and after the contest?

 

So there is no guideline at all, just "create a game"? Or am I missing something because I can't find any info on what you have to do besides that.

 

From the website:

coupled with the rather amusing photo and a complete lack of detail on ANYTHING on the website, I'm not really sure what to make of this

 

Not sure if "Programming Contest' fits to this type of contest..The contest involves much more than just programming.I one find it misleading

 

++

 

Where does it say that?

 

Few things that made me decide to hold off before participating.

The "programming contest" name is misleading as previously mentioned.
Team can consist up to 4 members, but prize is 2-person trip to Finland. Doesn't seem fair, although Unity Pro licenses seems ok.
No 2nd, 3rd, and runner up prizes?
No judging criteria? What is being judged? How well it's programmed? Fun factor? Everything?

I love contests, but as-is this one is missing too much important details.

 

I agree with you guys. The formatting is a mess. Very little useful info and contradicting statements.

 

There are many ways to interpret the info above.
The positive parts :
-The theme is free to choose
-You own the rights of your game
-Exposure - promotion via participation for a game someone has created
-A chance to create relations with major publishers - game development - game education players
-A free copy of "Introduction to Game Programming with Unity" made by Viope
-Some prizes
-Those who win, have a chance to use their ultra - warm clothes against the ultra - cold Finish winter

EDIT
Exposure to those who will read the press covering the event.

Btw - I am sharing my point of view which may or may not be right. I have no relation with the organizers of this contest.

 

Actually, better to say whoever wants to go should go. For the rest, let's get back to what matters!!

 

Damn..... I have a team of 8

 

@Myhijim make two teams.
Their facebook page claims 200 teams, they probably won't look through all of them anyway...

They also tell you to join their newsletter to be informed on the discount!!! Ah ah. This is pure marketing campaign.You enroll for the game and they will flood your mailbox with spam.

I pass, there are plenty of other contests organized by the real industry.

 

Soo..... usually a team will win, overpowering individuals by the numbers, or someone who is using assets they already own or projects they already started, and who have money to spend .... *sour grapes* lol

I wish the playing field were totally levelled somehow to make it a fairer contest.

 

Me and my 3 others are in

Can't say we would win, but hell this is one big motivator for the project that was already underway.

 

Thank you for the comments and questions. This is the very first time we arrange this competition and it is quite hard to think of all possible aspects before hands. We do our best and will improve for the 2013-2014 contest based on appropriate comments.

>Is it mostly about programming, so can alpha prototypes can participate? Will it affect much the judgement?
> And can games be pitched to publishers before, during and after the contest?

Alpha prototypes can also participate. However, the more complete the game is, the better chances you have to win the contest.

You can pitch your game by submitting optional documents - they will be read by the jury (see partners section on the contest site) when the judging time comes, in January. Should you win the contest, you will personally meet some of the game studios and obviously have some more opportunities for pitching.

> So there is no guideline at all, just "create a game"? Or am I missing something because I can't find
> any info on what you have to do besides that.

Yes, just create a game . We didn't want to restrict too much - let the creativity flow.

> Not sure if "Programming Contest' fits to this type of contest..The contest involves much more than
> just programming.I one find it misleading

Yes, it involves much more but it doesn't mean you must be an expert on every field or have a team of
four professionals - there is a lot of free materials around the net which you can make use of.

> Team can consist up to 4 members, but prize is 2-person trip to Finland. Doesn't seem fair, although
> Unity Pro licenses seems ok.

This is due to the fact that we have limited resources arranging the contest the first time. If a team of
four wants to travel, that is also fine but the travel costs will be covered for two.

> No 2nd, 3rd, and runner up prizes?

At the moment there is only main prize and special prize for students. In addition, we will arrange giveaways (currently one on-going in Facebook).

> No judging criteria? What is being judged? How well it's programmed? Fun factor? Everything?

The judging criteria will not be published, but if you use common sense, you may get some clues. Overall impression is the most important, I would say. Judges may or may not disagree ;-).

> Their facebook page claims 200 teams, they probably won't look through all of them anyway...

Every single contest entry will be looked through.

>They also tell you to join their newsletter to be informed on the discount!!! Ah ah. This is pure marketing
> campaign.You enroll for the game and they will flood your mailbox with spam.

Where is this mentioning about discount? We do not like spam. Do not expect that.


Thank you once again for your comments and hope to see some of you take part!

 

This is pretty useless information, and it kind of nullifies any competitive element there could potentially be because we don't even know how you'll be comparing things. Are you looking for original mechanics? Skillful execution? Polish? Fancy shaders? Performance (On what? Compared to what? Doing what?)? Art? Commercial readiness? Fitness for target market?

I wouldn't compete in this purely because I wouldn't actually know what the competition is. You're essentially asking a bunch of people to hand over (and trust you with) builds of their projects on the premise that there's a lottery for a prize that one of them gets at the end.

Would you also hold a sporting contest by inviting a bunch of people to an oval and asking them to just do random stuff for an hour after which you'll pick a winner?

 

Now I'd pay to see that.

 

I'm in. After all, I just keep on working on my current project as usual and submit it before deadline (due to free theme).

Oh by the way, having that many big game studios as judges, it would be more comfortable for participants to get more information on the official site than on forum. I wonder if it's too late to edit.

 

Can I submit a game that I released on the iOS App Store a month ago?

 

Can I submit a game that I downloaded from Pirate Bay? Remove the credit at the beginning, remove the last half of the levels and rename it from Modern Warfare 3 to "My very own game that I did for the contest.Honest".

Now I like the reply from the OP

"Where is this mentioning about discount? We do not like spam. Do not expect that. "

So why do the rules have a line stating that they can forward the contestant information to the partners? If that is not for marketing, I must have missed something.

"Every single contest entry will be looked through. "

I guess he meant through the box. They really want us to think that they will take the time to play each and every game from top to bottom??!! 200 games??!! That is more than a hardcore gamer can do in a lifetime??!!

They should have named this the "Viope Game Lottery" just like @angrypenguin said....

 

I have a question, are we allowed to submit games we've already been working on or do they have to have been started after the competition started?

 

> Can I submit a game that I released on the iOS App Store a month ago?

No, the game must be unpublished (rules 3.2).

> I have a question, are we allowed to submit games we've already been working
> on or do they have to have been started after the competition started?

If they are unpublished, sure.

 

Of course it is for marketing. They just don't like spam.

Rarely do these types of contests play a game from top to bottom.

 

So if we can't put our iOS game on the app store, then how do we submit it?

Send you a developer build signed with our developer certificate?

Can we then submit it to the App Store after the contest is finished?

 

@techmage The idea behind the "Not yet published game" is that you do not go and download something and claim it your own. When the contest is over, you are free to do whatever you want since they tell you, you own your game.

Still, it is hard to control if all games are genuinely developed by the teams as well sd you cannot really tell if a team of pro are not using leftovers of AAA games, it should not happen though by copyright and bla bla bla...

For the submission you do not submit through any official platform, it is told that you use their own. You register, they give you credentials, you access their environment and can submit.

Their goal behind all that is also that you see their product obviously and that is why they want you to register to their own platform.

 

I just remembered that contest and went to see who won. I went on their facebook page and found a funny post:

I like the idea of "picking out" the best game.
And then we have a post of a person that finds weird that no one have tried his game yet but the draw will happen anyway.
And then they come up with a fancy reply.

I did not participate and I think it was a good idea not to.
All in all to those who thought it was a joke, well you were right.

Unity should check who they are dealing with ...

 

Having a similar situation right now. No logins have ever been done with the versions I’ve uploaded to their contest page (they had a special buildId that would have been submitted to the site upon starting the application). It is not possible to run the game without doing this check.

Just tweeted a question about this. There are perhaps some legit reasons, but I would really like to hear about it.
To be continued.

 

Ok, they said the game was played and they would contact me:

@"Minitankbattles: the game has been played. We will provide you with the details as the tech team has given the comments"
@"Minitankbattles: we will contact you after the event for more details"

Also a big applause for the winners!

 

It would be nice to see the games.
Even better it would have been nice to have a page with the possibility to see a description of the game.

BUT, someone said they had 600 entries, no wonder they did not play them all...

A friend of mine who participated told me he received a message from the company that he was in the final list.
According to him, he was ashamed to be there since he sent a Uni course project game he had aside so with no real modeling and no real programming either (he was a freshman at the time of the course).

We have to admit that the whole purpose is purely marketing since they are not from the game industry and they are probably happy with it since they have those 600 participants.

Still, they could check their communication as it does not look real good from here.

 

Few weeks on. No e-mail or anything.
Going to try a final attempt. If there is no result I feel safe enough to call this whole marketing campaign very misleading or even downright bull**** for hopeful developers that saw a chance of having their game being reviewed/scored by noteworthy judges.